I was thinking of having punctuation characters on the table to remind them that I want to see it in their writing. Any good ideas to remind them about punctuation in BW?

Four dirty great punctuation pyramids around the classroom (flipchart size), 10 minutes in the input dedicated to finding or adding the punctuation, and sessions of kung-fu punctuation when I get a spare 5 minutes! In addition to that, I remind them 5 minutes into the BW, and again 10 minutes before the end of BW. Laminated pyramids on each table (enough for one each now, stops the squabbles).

If I am in a really good mood, I have been known to give them the chance to include all their punctuation before handing it in and check it, on the understanding that if I find mistakes, then they owe me 5 pressups per mistake!

Please no offence meant but I don't like pyramids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just me but really not my thing. Tried it. Do all you suggested. Think I'm going for the constant nagging approach.

Don't get me wrong they are trying but I really want the punctuation embedded by February half term.
I can see why pyramid are great but no room.

In that case, I would work with progressive teaching through the levels, 5 minutes a day or morning work. Use the pyramid on the IWB, reveal a level a week, and work with that level, but referring back to the previous levels as they progress. Build it into guided reading, get them to record in reading logs when they see a particularly great example of punctuation. Your higher level writers could probably step up a level or two, but there is no harm in making sure that they remember 'Capital letter, full stop' in their writing, no matter how good they think they are! I have not read the register properly this term - I make them answer with punctuation and their associated levels, WOW words, etc (or sometimes like a pirate if I am in that mood!) - but they never simply say "here". I also use the Science topics, but I would say that if you want punctuation to be a focus, work on that one or two register-readings a week!

Feb half term would give you time to push this in. Just continually model-do, like my SEN do with things like PAT (although that's apparently a swear word in Hampshire these days!), or phonics and handwriting. Once they see it being used, hear it being used, and then do it themselves, it will become second nature. Try getting them to use different colour pencils for different punctuation levels. Get them to find examples of excellent punctuation, and then show some unpunctuated work, and get them to punctuate it properly. We do this in Science, depending on the literacy focus for that week, I will also mark the science books with reference to this.

The main problem I have is that they all try to use the higher level punctuation without remembering the lower level stuff - they need to be stepped through so that they are confident. I would say that "getting" commas is crucial, the rest is useful and can be worked in when the opportunity arises. My higher level writers are happy with ellipsis, brackets, etc, so I am content to let them get on and use them. My mid-range writers are still not solid with apostrophe's (sic!), so that is their current focus.

And remember that some children simply will NOT get it!

Thanks lots of fab ideas there - thanks

Could you post any photos of your pyramids? I'm sure others would find it useful.
I just no loneger have any space. Have had to use two boards for targets.

Will take photos of pyramid and VCOP board tomorrow, get them posted up as soon as possible. Just marked the worst writing they have done in BW - formal letter complaining to the local council about the "New Forest Lapland". Absolute tosh. Then again, someone else gave them the lead in, so I am wondering because they are so uniformly bad, they were misdirected. All levels have take a huge drop, they have not used connectives (except 'and') and have used appalling informal writing. Punctuation is all around the Level 1/2 mark, and those that have tried to use the higher level punctuation have tried to put ellipses in! Despite being told to write to 'Dear Sir or Madam', they have almost all written 'Dear Council', apart from one who as written 'Dear BBC'! They have managed to completely miss the point of formal letter writing, so I am going to ease up on them this week rather than demoralise them before Xmas, and give them something easier to write that they can swap-mark. Success for them, and no indepth marking for me!

No that kind of writing is extremely difficult, Ros moaned at me last year for one of the writing tasks I set - these are young children who may not have the skills/experiences to do some of the things we want them to.
Did you do lots of drama & speaking and listening before this or was it done cold?

WE modelled, went through the features, it was something they should not have had a problem with. However, I have spoken to the head who reassured us that this is just a blip, and we are probably being too hard on ourselves and them. They write as they speak - we cannot realistically expect formal writing if that is not how they speak on a regular basis, we just need to focus on smaller parts, which we are doing this Friday. We have decided not to give them a writing task this Friday, but to go through the letters, celebrating the good bits and fixing the bits that are not so good. It's not the end of the world, it's just that we decided to use this on Target Tracker as their end of term assessment, which now suddenly looks like they have gone backwards, when we know they have moved on. I have downloaded the Bristol marking sheets and I will look at them again with fresh eyes using those sheets and see if I can be less harsh. We are still setting them targets, but as the head wants each assessed piece of writing to be letter-based, they are going to have to do a lot more work on this.

We are introducing BW across the school next term, and they have the consultants coming in (not sure who yet!), so BW is still high on the agenda!

First thing Ros said when she saw my kids writing was they write how they speak! Funny that! Letters are great but so are diaries. Could you send your plan for your complaint letters and I'll try it with my class? vcopteacher@googlemail.com

Please look back at ALL the writing they have done unaided and use that to form a more rounded judgement - that is what I do because as we know children prefer different types of writing and can often show their strengths in a variety of text types.

Do you do pre teaching assessment pieces? So before complaint letters you would get them to write on before you teach the text type. Then you use this to determine your teaching & personalise the learning and you can compare and see improvements made.